The Chinese murderess of British businessman Neil Heywood attempted to frame
him as an ecstasy and crystal meth-dealing drug king pin, it has been
claimed.

Over one year after Mr Heywood's murder, in November 2011, new details of the events surrounding his death are beginning to emerge in China's domestic media.

Long silent about Mr Heywood's poisoning – which triggered an virtually unprecedented political crisis and was later attributed to Mr Bo's wife, Gu Kailai – the heavily-censored Chinese media is now setting its sights on the affair with a series of startling revelations.

The disclosures, which have largely centred on the alleged activities of Bo Xilai's former police chief, Wang Lijun, paint a terrifying portrait of Mr Bo's time as the powerful party chief of Chongqing, where Mr Heywood was murdered inside a hotel room.

In a lengthy report on Mr Wang, the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolis Weekly magazine this week revealed previously unreported details of the alleged events leading up to Mr Heywood's murder.

The report includes allegations of a plot hatched by Mr Wang and Mrs Gu to frame Mr Heywood as a drug trafficker and addict.

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Reports of the conspiracy first surfaced during Mrs Gu's trial in August but the Southern Metropolis Weekly story adds new details, including claims that shortly before Mr Heywood was murdered a call was placed to the local police, claiming the Briton ran a drug distribution network in south-west China.

The magazine also claimed Mrs Gu had instructed her servant, Zhang Xiaojun, to purchase ecstasy and crystal meth in order to frame Mr Heywood.

As well as details of the alleged plot, the Chinese magazine also published previously unseen extracts from a supposed email exchange between Mr Heywood and the son of Mr Bo and Mrs Gu, Bo Guagua.

The two men allegedly fell out over a property deal in the lead-up to Mr Heywood's death.

According to the Southern Metropolis Weekly, Mr Heywood wrote an email to Bo Guagua in July 2011 demanding £14 million. In another email, reputedly written just days before his murder, the Old Harrovian told Mrs Gu's son: "If your actions are not consistent with your words, you will face the consequence of your own deeds. I have not fully given up on you."

In a third email, Mr Heywood reportedly wrote: "If it is not the time to resolve the issue, let's put it aside for now." Despite this, Mrs Gu reportedly continued to believe that Mr Heywood "would destroy Bo Guagua the same way the Old Summer Palace was destroyed".

Beijing's Old Summer Palace was ransacked and destroyed by British and French troops in 1860.

In August, Mrs Gu was convicted of Mr Heywood's murder, claiming she had plotted his death after he threatened her son. She was later given a suspended death sentence. Mr Bo is expected to stand trial next year, accused of taking "huge" bribes and his role in the Neil Heywood affair. Wang Lijun received a 15-year sentence for his role in covering up Mr Heywood's murder and attempting to defect to the United States.

The Southern Metropolis Weekly did not name its sources and attributed the new information to "material" it had acquired. But the level of detail suggests its reporters had some level of access to the investigations into Mr Heywood's slaying.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post has also begun publishing a series of exposes on Bo Xilai's Chongqing.

In one story the newspaper describes how victims of Mr Bo's "smash-black" anti-mafia campaign were routinely tortured by members of the Chongqing police force.

"Many undercover police took me to a motel far from the city on the afternoon of July 14 and shackled me on a chair," one alleged victim, Li Ping, told the newspaper. "They forced me to stay awake. I wasn't able to sleep for seven days."

The Chinese website Tencent also published a grisly list of 10 torture techniques it claimed were employed by Mr Wang's interrogators, including injecting wasabi into victims' noses.

David Bandurski, from Hong Kong University's China Media Project, said the recent mainland media focus on Mr Bo's Chongqing reflected a consensus among senior leaders about the case.

"The Party has made it very clear where they stand on this case," he said. "There's a position and it has been made very clear at a senior level so this gives them [mainland journalists] cover."

But Mr Bandurski said the stories did not indicate any greater freedom for the Chinese media to report on other cases of high-level corruption.

"If they want to do similar exposes on [other leaders] that is impossible," he said. "I think that contrast is pretty revealing."

One former Chongqing government official told The Daily Telegraph they believed the recent reports were an attempt to "dirty Bo's name". The source claimed China's new leadership, led by incoming president Xi Jinping and premier Li Keqiang, hoped negative reports would help destroy Mr Bo's political legacy and weaken his support base.

"Now Xi and Li are in power, they don't want Bo's thinking to continue to have an effect," the source said. "Even now many ordinary Chinese still support Bo and believe he was wronged."

Writing this week on his influential Sinocism website, China commentator Bill Bishop wrote: "The steady reporting in the Chinese press of Chongqing misdeeds probably does not bode well for Bo at his eventual trial."